The association of premorbid psychological factors--stress, personality, social environment--and cancer incidence and cancer mortality has been proposed and argued about. The possibility of such an association continues to be examined. Propsective studies on various cohorts are being pursued: a) an employee cohort showed no relationship of repression test scores to cancer incidence or mortality over the following 20 years, and verified, in later cancer incidence cases, a previously found positive relationship of depression scores to later cancer mortality; b) a college cohort showed a relationship between men's scores on a set of 15 psychological items and colon cancer mortality over the following 35 years; c) follow-up of an adult Swedish county cohort for a further 20 years after an initial 10-year follow-up indicated an existing but reduced relationship of cancer mortality and specific psychological test scores in the 2nd 10-year follow-up; and d) follow-up of a cohort of men with Type A and B personalities over 10 year showed a positive but non-significant risk for Type A. The theory of the relationship of psychological factors to cancer initiation and progress has been clarified somewhat and is being investigated further.